T. J. got off the bike.
“She's a beauty, isn't she?” Jay had come out from behind the meat counter. He was a big man, wearing jeans and a bloodstained apron.
T. J. looked at the price tag, and nodded.
“Ought to put a steak on that eye,” Jay said.
“What do you mean?”
Jay smiled. “Just a joke. An old remedy boxers used when they got shiners. You put a steak over it. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Doesn't look like nothing.” Jay shrugged, took a white towel off his shoulder, and wiped his hands. “If you want to talk about it, I'm always here.”
T. J. said nothing, and after several long moments, Jay walked away.
“Already got someone to talk to,” T. J. muttered, his hand running over the metallic blue frame.
* * * *
At three ten that afternoon, T. J. turned from Main Street onto Ridell Road and leaned forward under the great weight of his book bag. The swelling around his eye had diminished, but the bruises remained, and he was tired of answering questions (and lying) about them.
He wished he could talk to his father about it all. Did his father know Leon would react that way? Had he known he'd have to fight? Sometimes T. J. wondered what his father had been like when he was ten.
T. J. emerged from his daydream when he heard the basketball slapping the pavement, shouts of recognizable voices. He straightened, saw the after-school four-on-four game, watched Leon Landis directing play, dribbling, pointing, shouting instructions from the point-guard position like a film director steering his cast.
T. J. reached the driveway, when Leon caught the ball on the dribble and held it. The game stopped as if a button had been pushed.
T. J. didn't know what to do. Leon was staring at him. Should he continue walking? Could all be forgiven? Could he possibly be asked to play like before, the recess banishment being enough?
Moments passed, Leon's gaze seemed to grow in its intensity.
T. J. hunched forward, as if the weight of his backpack was now unbearable.
“I told my father what you called me,” Leon called. “He said the apple don't fall far from the tree. That's why your old man got sixty years. That's why things never change in the South.”
No one on the court moved. Skeet shot T. J. a hard stare.
T. J. leaned forward, like a boy fighting a headwind, and walked home.
* * * *
At five thirty, T. J. poured a glass of milk, made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and sat on the couch, playing Xbox until someone pounded on the door. He got up to answer it.
“How's it going, dude?” Marty wore a red University of Alabama T-shirt and carried a square-shaped paper sack. T. J. recognized it at once as a six-pack.
Marty stepped around T. J. and called to his mother. “I'm here, babe.” Then he turned to T. J. “Why don't you go to your room, Sport, do some homework or something.”
T. J. played on his Nintendo DS until eight, when he left his room to get a drink. The living room was dark, the TV splashing light in occasional bursts. On the sofa, Marty lay atop his mother, a blanket covering them. T. J. saw Marty's shape beneath the blanket rise up, then fall, heard his mother moan softly.
Continuing to stare, T. J. retreated to his room, shuffling backwards, closing the bedroom door behind him.
* * * *
The moon was full, and it was cold at eleven p.m. when T. J. slid his bedroom window up and jumped to the ground. The houses along Ridell Street were dark, and no traffic moved along Main Street. He thought of how much things had changed in one day, of standing alone at recess, of being on the road while the others played basketball, of the image of Marty and his mother.
He wondered what his father was doing right now. What had he done that day? He was sure his father thought of him as often as he thought of his father.
And he was frightened, not of what he was about to do, but of how alone he had become in the past twenty-four hours.
He was about to change that.
It was unexpectedly easy.
Under a bright autumnal moon, it took only a single rock, like a fastball from twenty feet, and the front door's glass rained down. The alarm chimed like a repetitive blaring song, the circular red light flashing like a steady pulse.
And the bike was his.
But he didn't take it home. He rode in circles in front of Jay's Country Store until the first cruiser arrived. Then he stopped and stood, arms folded across his chest, the blue bike leaning against his side.
“Did you take that bike, son?” the officer asked, eyes narrowed, head tilted to the side as if uncertain of the situation. He was a large black man and kept looking from T. J. to the $219 price tag hanging like a written confession from the handlebars.
“Uh-huh.”
The man's dark face shone, glistening beneath the moon.
“You did?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
T. J. didn't answer. He stood staring at the ground.
“Son—” The man knelt beside him. “—do you know what you've done?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“You took the bike just to ride it in front of the store?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Son—”
“I'm not your son.”
“—you're in a lot of trouble.”
T. J. nodded.
“Why did you take the bike?”
He looked at the man. Then he looked away, back toward Ridell Road, where his mother was still with Marty, where his days of playing basketball were over. Finally, he turned back and refocused on the ground. “Because once a year ain't enough,” he said.
“What?” the officer said.
“Put me in Garriston,” T. J. said. “Once a year ain't enough.”
Copyright © 2012 John R. Corrigan
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* * *
Black Orchid Novella Award: INNER FIRE
by Jolie McLarren Swann
Congratulations to Jolie McLarren Swann (take note of that name), winner of the fifth annual Black Orchid Novella Award, co-sponsored by AHMM and The Wolfe Pack. As usual, the BONA recognizes an original novella that exhibits the spirit of ratiocinative detection exemplified by the great Nero Wolfe. The pseudonymous author of this year's winning story assures us that it is the first in a new series, and we look forward to its sequels. But there's a special puzzle here for AHMM readers—it turns out that hidden in the Swann alias is the author's true name. Welcome back, James Lincoln Warren, familiar to our readers for his many stories in these pages, including those in his popular Treviscoe series. Moreover, Swann/Warren promises us that the anagrammatical fun continues in the story itself.
INNER FIRE
It may be brain dead, but nothing boosts my confidence like a good hair day. Susan Sherman, my best friend in tenth grade, once gave me some excellent advice: “Never date a guy with hair more beautiful than yours.” For once, there was no danger of that. My flaxen coiffeur was fit for the red carpet on Oscar night.
So I wasn't intimidated by the big, handsome Pacific Islander's glossy, flowing raven locks in the elevator of the Global Trade Tower in Century City, where MTRG had its headquarters. He looked like a running back, broad shoulders, tiny waist, dressed in a well-tailored midnight blue suit with a lemon yellow tie and matching pocket square, secure enough in his virility to be wearing a pink button-down shirt. No tassels (those are always a danger sign) on his pebbled calfskin loafers. By all appearances, not your usual surfer dude, but to my experienced eye I knew he'd be a natural balanced on an Oahu North Shore gun, shooting a thirty-foot breaker. Plus, he was checking me out. I flashed my flirtiest smile.
“Floor?” he asked.
“You've already pressed it.”
“MTRG? Excuse me, but you don't look much like a technogeek.”
“Neither do you.
”
“I'm not,” he said, smiling, showing perfectly straight white teeth and dimples to die for. “I've got . . . other business there. You?”
“Just meeting a girlfriend for latte and a muffin.”
Short silence. Finally he smiled again and said, “I'm Adrian Tabi.”
“Erica Wooding.”
More floors whizzed by.
“What business?” I asked.
He assumed that roosterlike look that presaged the claim that he was a jet airline pilot or worked for the CIA. Disappointing, yes, but boys will be boys. “I'm an insurance investigator. Working on a big case . . . but it's not really something I can talk about. Client confidentiality, you understand.”
“Wow,” I said. “That must be fascinating work.”
“Sometimes,” he said, assuming a strong-but-silent display of masculine modesty. “Who's your girlfriend? Maybe I know her.”
“Probably not,” I replied. “She's a temp. Bunny Fredericks?”
“No, sorry,” he said, and I was saved from further prevarication by the door sliding open.
“After you,” he said, holding out his hand like a maitre d’ in a snooty restaurant. He walked over to the big glass doors that opened into MTRG's reception area and held one open for me.
I couldn't very well let him figure out I didn't really have a girlfriend on the premises, so I fidgeted and looked around, wide eyed.
“Thanks,” I said, “but first, the powder room?”
He smiled. “To your right. I hope to see you later.”
“That would be great,” I said. “Sorry, gotta go. I mean—”
He gave a casual wave and went inside as I traipsed off to the loo. I knew he'd let me go. I've noticed that men would rather stab themselves multiple times in the abdomen with a K-bar than wait outside a women's toilet.
I took a few seconds to admire my new hairstyle in the mirror and refresh my lipstick before emerging to make sure Adrian was gone. Then I went in.
There was a tall, thin man standing at the high curved counter giving the bimbo receptionist a major-league tongue-lashing. The man wore what must have been a bespoke suit in dark gray with gold pinstripes—it had surgeon's cuffs and British double vents, and looked like vicuña. Anyway, it went perfectly with the gold Audemars Piguet chronograph on his left wrist. He was not a happy unit and was giving the bimbo the benefit of pointing his well-manicured finger in her face.
“The next time that wog Tabi waltzes in and I don't hear about it first, you'll be looking for a new job,” he said in clipped Londoner tones. “And you won't find one. Am I clear?”
The receptionist pursed her lips in suppressed anger and meekly replied, “Yes, Mr. Pippinger.”
He turned from her and I got a good look at his face. Vulpine, I think the word is, mid forties, good looking, if your taste runs to strong, cruel faces. He scanned me up and down, taking in everything all at once, obviously coming to the conclusion that I didn't have any potential, because he didn't pause a microsecond before striding off. He didn't slam the door of his corner office shut: There was already a flunky there to do it for him.
I approached the receptionist. Her desk placard said she was Rachel Dunn. Her lips moved as she muttered something inaudible for her own benefit. From what I could guess, it was “pommy bastard.”
“Hi,” I said. I looked down the hall at the closed door of the rich man's office. “Why do men all have to be such assholes?”
She didn't react at all, other than looking at me as if I had toilet paper sticking out of my waistband.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a dreadful Australian whine.
“I don't know. That gorgeous guy who just came in a couple minutes ago, I think his name is Adrian? I met him in the elevator.”
She assumed a knowing look. No pity, only disdain. “Get in line.”
Then she took a deep breath and her chin started to tremble.
I decided to ignore the scorn as if I hadn't seen it and barreled forward. “I think he said something about Lloyd's America?”
I took a chance with that. It might not have been Lloyd's that he worked for, but since they're the biggest marine insurance group in the world, it was a good guess.
“That's right.”
Two points!
But that public dressing down she'd just been given must have stung worse than an eyeful of iodine. Her face threatened to crumple, but she overcame it in a flash of indignation, and seized on the distraction I'd provided.
“Big-time insurance investigator,” she said, sniveling. “Big-time jerk, you ask me—almost as bad as Mr. Colin Blobhead Pippinger.” She shifted her eyes toward the corner office. Then suddenly she opened up. “About Adrian. I'd forget it if I were you. Been there, got the T-shirt.”
“Really? He seems like such a nice guy.”
“Oh, he is. For as long as it takes to get what he's after. You're right. They're all the same.”
I folded my arms and put my elbows on the counter, leaning toward her in just-between-us-girls confidentiality. “He isn't really here about some missing boat then, is he?”
That was too quick, because now she was suspicious.
“Who the hell are you?”
Tap-dancing, my specialty. “Oh, I could tell you stories. I'll bet you didn't know that Adrian was married.”
She frowned, thought better of it, and then smirked, but realizing what she must look like, just as quickly assumed a mask of sympathetic distress. “His poor wife!”
“Look, I didn't really lie about meeting him in the elevator, because I've never actually seen him before—but the truth is he's seeing my sister, and she's so naive—I don't want her to get hurt. She's crazy about him and I could just tell from the way she described him that he was bad news. So I'm sort of checking him out, and guess what? Married. Four kids. House in Encino, minivan—the works. And smooth? He gave her some line about looking for this stolen superyacht, but I thought it was all bullshit.”
“That whacker,” she breathed. “The best liars always throw in a bit of the truth, don't they? The superyacht is missing.”
I nodded. “That fits. He's a charmer, all right. Tall, dark, and mysterious—my God, it's such a cliché. But who could steal a yacht? Sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”
Rachel leaned forward. “No, that much is true. We think it was an inside job. Adrian really shouldn't have talked about it, though.”
“Well, it worked, because Barbara was all impressed. Listen, Rachel, if I call you later, can you talk to her, and help me prove to her that he's just another sexual predator?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
“I'd better get out of here before Adrian sees me and gets suspicious,” I said. “Our little secret, right?”
“Right. I wish I'd had a sister like you when I met that ratbag.”
We shook hands briefly but intensely, and I slipped out just as she called out, “Wait! What's your name?” Naturally I didn't bother to stop—I needed to make my getaway. I was in such a rush that I almost forgot to take the stairs down a flight so Adrian Tabi wouldn't see me if he left MTRG before the elevator came.
True master detectives know when to improvise.
* * * *
The job started with a bang, an explosive fireball erupting on the ocean. I didn't know anything about that at first. If anything, my life at the time was more of a whimper. Living in L.A. was turning out to be a lot more expensive than I had figured, and to complicate things I'd just been fired. Pete Grady, the P.I. who hired and then canned me, said our “relationship” wasn't working out, and he was right, because there was no way I was going let that cheesy fat sleaze bucket get in my pants. Standards, I got ‘em.
Then I spilled coffee all over my laptop in a café, frying the motherboard. So much for Facebooking with my friends. Now I couldn't even troll the Net for sympathy, because there was no way I could afford a new computer. So I was feeling angry and sorry for myself.
That's why w
hen I was asked to come downtown for an interview I was cheered up enough to break into spontaneous dance, much to the annoyance of my downstairs neighbor. The call said nothing at all about explosive fireballs. All I knew was that I finally had an appointment with a potential client. And man, did I need a client.
Dad desperately wanted me back home—you know what some fathers are like when it comes to their little princesses, not that at five foot ten I'm remotely little, or have ever been anything like a princess unless princesses routinely skin their knees falling out of trees.
Anyway, he knew all about my financial smackdown and figured he could use it as leverage.
“I'm raking it in, Erica,” his voice said, buzzing out of the cell phone sitting on the dresser. I needed my hands free because I was changing into something more professional than jeans and a tank top. The voice kept on talking. “The recession hasn't hurt our business. It's booming. I'll pay you straight salary.”
“I'd rather work on a fee basis, Dad. Like I'm doing right now.” Actually, what I was doing right then was tugging on a stubborn zipper on my skirt, but he didn't need to know that.
“I get it. I do. You want to strike out on your own. But I'd feel a lot better if you lived closer to home. Los Angeles is dangerous. People disappear there.”
Nice try. I was done with Fresno in general and with Sherwood Brothers Bail Bonds in particular. I wanted to do real detective work, for real people who needed real help, not just track down bail-jumping knuckleheads.
When I finished pulling on my left shoe, I picked up the phone, took the call off speaker, and put it up to my ear.
“Exactly,” I said. “People disappear in L.A. That's why I'm here, to find them. In case you forgot, you trained me to be a skip tracer, and that's how I qualified for my license. Besides, I like it here. I can go surfing whenever I want, and there are real beaches where you can play real beach volleyball.”
I heard something suspiciously like muffled speech. That meant Dad was holding his hand over the phone, either speaking to an employee about work or something much more sinister: calling in the cavalry. I decided I'd better get off the line.
AHMM, July/August 2012 Page 20
